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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137485">Job Offer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019'>lwise2019</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stand Still Stay Silent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:41:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>704</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137485</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A hypothetical explanation of how Mikkel ended up on the expedition, and what he was doing there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Job Offer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mikkel Madsen studied the letter thoughtfully.  He'd only received a few letters in his entire life, and one from General Trond was most unexpected.</p><p>Well, there was little to be learned from the envelope.  It had been posted two days earlier from a town in Norway, the General's hometown, he thought, though he had never had deep personal discussions with the man, and the General had paid extra to get it to him so quickly.</p><p>Interesting.</p><p>The letter within was brief.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Madsen,</p>
  <p>The Nordic Council on History and Rediscovery has approved a research expedition into the Silent World.  The duration is two weeks and the team will be given the use of a small tank for protection.  Sigrun Eide will be the Captain of the expedition.  While she is a competent and experienced troll-hunter, the rest of the team is less so.  Indeed, I have little faith in any of them.</p>
  <p>Sigrun is the daughter of a friend and I want her back alive.  I want you to go along with the expedition as her unofficial bodyguard, and I trust in your discretion to keep this from her knowledge.</p>
  <p>This is not an official assignment and the Army will not pay you.  I believe, however, that if you choose to go, you will be well-paid from the profits of the expedition.</p>
  <p>I will be at the Öresund base within a day after you receive this letter.  Meet me there if you agree.</p>
  <p>Trond</p>
</blockquote><p>Mikkel regarded the letter.  He'd worked for the General off and on for ten years; these days, mostly off.  A week before the massacre at Kastrup, the General had approached him to serve as … well, what could only be described as a spy.  Tall and powerfully built, with a broad peasant face and a thick Danish accent, he was the Icelanders' image of a big dumb Danish farm boy.  Since he actually had grown up on a farm, he could not be caught out by questioning.</p><p>Though he could speak and read Icelandic with ease, he'd pretended ignorance of the language and thus managed to get himself close enough to overhear discussions that would never have occurred if the participants had been aware of his language skills.  His superb hearing had also helped in that regard.  Moreover, he had an eidetic memory so he had needed only moments at an unguarded desk to memorize all sorts of confidential papers.</p><p>And when he'd gotten the information he'd been sent for, he had no trouble being insolent or insubordinate or pulling some unforgivable prank, and getting himself fired.  There were always more jobs for a man like him, particularly since he had the good fortune to be immune to the Rash.</p><p>He'd been the General's most valuable agent for about five years and then … </p><p>Something had gone wrong.  There were still jobs, of course; there were always jobs.  But he was never again hired for the jobs he wanted, the jobs the General wanted him to take.  At length they concluded that his cover had been blown somehow, and he could no longer spy for the General or, indirectly, the Norwegian Army.</p><p>Actually he wasn't entirely sure that he ever <em>had</em> spied for the Norwegian Army as opposed to the General himself.  The General said he was spying for the Army, but somehow his pay always came in the form of cash from the hand of the General or another agent and, well, Mikkel had his doubts.</p><p>Unable to serve as a spy, he'd been a courier,  taking papers or information here and there among the five surviving nations of the world, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, his native Denmark (reduced to the island of Bornholm), and once even to tiny Finland.  But courier jobs were few and far between, and he'd spent most of his time on the family farm or in various odd jobs.  The odd jobs were always boring compared to his prior life as a spy, and it never took long for him to get himself fired.</p><p>So he was at loose ends again and he was being offered a job as a secret and unofficial bodyguard for a troll-hunter amid the deadly horrors of the Silent World?</p><p>
  <em>Sign me up!</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
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